Rone's Empty - Immortalised in 3D

Dean Kominek

October 26, 2016

PHORIA is a Melbourne based Immersive Media start up. It’s team leverage innovative tools like 3D cameras, virtual & augmented reality and interactive technology to transport you places. This is used by homebuyers looking to find their next dream home online, students exploring heritage sites from their classroom or even therapeutically by patients in hospital as a means to help reduce pain and anxiety.

Recently, we were invited by Melbourne based street artist Rone to help digitise the Old Lyric Theatre in 3D for his latest exhibition ‘Empty’. http://r-o-n-e.com/

This was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the value of 3D tours as a compelling tool to create a digital time capsule of unique landmarks, installations and spaces. Similar to our work and involvement with the Australian National Trust, we see immense value in preserving our cultural heritage for future generations to come.

Sadly, the Old Lyric Theatre is destined to be torn down in a few short months and sadly the history with it. We truly admire the statement put forward by Rone in his latest exhibition and were elated with excitement by the prospect of virtualising this unique experience for all those who missed it.

Here we used a Matterport 3D Camera to scan the buildings interior. This nifty little camera makes the production of interactive media incredibly easy and fast. Quite literally, this was ready to view the very next day. What makes it ever better is that we can now go directly from this 3D tour into a VR walkthrough at the click of a button.

Users with Google Cardboard or Samsung Gear VR can walk through the exhibition from anywhere in the world and at anytime as if they were physically there. If you don’t have a Google Cardboard, simply hit the play icon and ensure your device is in landscape mode to be taken on a nice guided tour through the exhibition.

One interesting note, was that we enlisted the use of a scissor lift to reach the higher areas of the building, we believe this was the first of its kind in the world.